UpworkReviews 2,134

I accepted my first job on elance. Indian-based company paying $5/hour... I accepted it thinking I would do the job to get a rating. Big mistake.

This company is out of Mumbai and the guy was impossible to please. Said my work was of exceptional quality, then turned around at the end when I said I wouldn't do any more work until we renegotiated a new rate and gave me a 3.7 out of 5 rating.

That just ruins my rep for any future clients.

Client ratings are too subjective and the rates offered freelancers are way below market value. I would not recommend elance to anyone in the U.S. or, at best, only submit proposals to U.S. or European-based clients.

I've worked with several freelancers from Elance with about 60% success but recently I had a horrible experience with one of their freelancers and received very unsatisfactory support. The freelancer is Scoped Design. Here is what happened.

I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO PROCEED WITH CAUTION. This freelancer completely swindled me out of $500 and did not deliver the work of customizing a wordpress theme based on Zeyn theme. S/he is the most dishonest person I've dealt with on this service. I had significant correspondence with freelancer prior to accepting job. Scoped_Design then contacted me stating that one of his jobs had cancelled for the week and offered a discount. Now, I of course know why the previous job backed out. They smelled something fishy. He asked for $500 up front stating that he needed to pay the outsourced SEO team, so since we'd had so much correspondence and he was very responsive I (stupidly) released funds. INSTALLED INCORRECT THEME: At that point, Scoped_Design installed a completely different theme on my wordpress site that I'd requested. This process took over a week. TOOK THE MONEY AND RAN: When asked to conform to original job request he did finally install requested theme and then I never heard from him again. ELANCE SUPPORT refused to assist in getting the monies back. They approved my claim agains Scoped Design but since the funds had been released, they seemed to have just dropped it. Good luck with them if you ever need assistance. I'm dismayed that they don't police their freelancers any better than that.

Filed a dispute after a horrible outcome on the job, and Elance forced me to pay for work I couldn't use... NEVER use this site

Without any prior notice elance stop expired my account even I have existing contact with 450$ a month. They should not close this account even some bad issue. They can limit feature but I totally disagree they will not close a account. They should warn. Elance scam my money more than 1000k in future life income. I must go to court and get official notice. Its our career issue. So If you work hard take exam test and other hard work all will be vain.

Very helpful people and very good escrow payment system. Working there for quite some time and never faced issues regarding client payments.

Must better than Freelancer.com.

Been hiring freelancers through Elance for close to 3 years now. Found some great freelancers and some not so great freelancers, But my beef is with the site itself! It is full of bugs that cost me a lot of my time and it has been going on for a long time now. Today I looked through the site for a place to write to them about their bugs and to my surprise there was no way to contact them. No phone number, no email, no form to fill in. Or it was so well hidden that... But seriously, in this day and age you do that?

I see alot of poor reviews from freelancers, but everyone should know that the employers get screwed as well. From the perspective of the one providing the work, I have found that eLance playing field tilted WAY too far towards the freelancer. So much so that when the freelancer doesn't do the work, they get paid. On top of that, since I complained to eLance about the freelancer not doing the work and refused to pay, I seen to have a 500% increase in spam and viruses sent my way through email. How about that. Elance cannot continue sitting back and paying freelancers when there is no proof of work being completed except for a timesheet. I agree with the review that this is a VERY poorly run escrow company. They do nothing to ensure that a product is delivered and that the product is paid for.

I hate to say I am glad I am not the only one who got a letter canceling my account. I literally just got off the phone with them to find out why - ready for this one - I didn't use the account enough. That is why I was dropped. Not bad reviews. Not lack of payment. Because I didn't use their site enough. I've worked with them for 4-5 years and this is the first time I have ever had an issue. And clearly the last time. They did refund my last payment but I don't care. This was ridiculous and clearly I am not the only one confused and upset by this. My advice - don't go there. If they can just randomly with no explanation cancel your membership when you have done NOTHING wrong - that is a problem. Guru, voices.com, or voice123 are much better options. You might pay a little more - but they don't cancel you :)

I recently accepted my first job on Elance and I was completely ripped off. I was hired by someone calling himself "Joe" to write copy 8 hours a day, six days a week at $15/hr. I completed two days work for "Joe" and received a warning from Elance that I may not get paid because "Joe's" payment info wasn't set up. Now, being new to the site, I had no idea that people can post jobs and accept work without having any way to pay for the work they commission. I immediately stopped work and confronted "Joe" about the payment issue and he claimed that it was a glitch on Elance's systems. This seemed reasonable to me as Elance's Work View program, an app that Elance uses to track a worker's progress on a project repeatedly stopped working and I was told by an Elance rep that this was a temporary problem. Regardless, I told "Joe" I wouldn't resume work until his payment info was resolved.

A few days later, "Joe" broke off all contact and his account appeared to have been shut down, by Elance or "Joe" himself I still don't know. I made a complaint through Elance's Dispute system and waited for a reply. Meanwhile, I googled sections of the copy I wrote and found it posted on a few different sites. I contacted a few of the site owners and heard back for one site admin that he purchased my content through a competing freelancing site called iWriter. "Joe" had stolen my content on Elance and resold it a different site. I added this new information to my Elance dispute.

Today, I finally heard back from Elance. They dismissed all my complaints and rejected my claims. Now, I realize that I was partially at fault for not finding out that Elance hosts projects with no security for writers, but the fact that Elace essentially cultivates a situation where freelancers can be abused in this manner is shocking. I would highly recommend that any freelance writers who are considering pursuing employment through Elance do literally anything else. Elance is a garbage company with nonexistent ethics.

Based upon the most recent reviews, I see that I am not the only Freelancer to have my Elance account closed with no warning and no response to my queries of support for their decision. I believe that Elance has other motives for closing accounts that are discriminatory in nature. Out of a total of five jobs awarded to me, I had one review that wasn't five stars over 2 years ago, and yet my account was closed due to a high number of negative client experiences. I have asked for the evidence from Elance, but have been ignored. With the experience I have in my profession, it is not unusual to command as much as $250 per hour. My profile was set up with a rate of $55 per hour, but most invitations I receive rarely exceed offers for $10 per hour. I believe my refusing to bid on invitations for jobs that offer to pay $3-$10 per hour might be what Elance considers a high number of negative client experiences. Based upon my belief, this is no excuse for closing an account because I should be afforded the opportunity to decline low budget jobs. Does Elance close accounts for employers that offer rates well below minimum wage? I haven't seen any negative reviews by employers having their accounts closed because on negative Freelancer experiences, so the answer must be NO. Do they close accounts of employers that rarely or never award jobs? The answer is NO. I've seen employers that have over 30 offers posted, and have only awarded 1 job.

Elance is a California based company that should not discriminate against Americans for not bidding or accepting well below market or minimum wage rate job offers. THEIR ACCOUNT (Website) SHOULD BE CLOSED! Maybe Freelancers should use Elance to hire an attorney to initiate a Class Action Lawsuit against Elance.

This is pretty much a stab in the back for the hard work and dedication I had put into Elance. As with many of you we put in the extra effort to have our clients satisfied, thinking the result would be more business for the service we offer.

Out of the blue my account was under review with no explanation as to why, other than form letters. "Close out all your jobs" and then we will review. I strongly feel it did not matter what I did... something triggered my account to be shut down. I guess I will never know.

In the long run it is better off for me not having to deal with an unprofessional company that does not have the "Balls" to talk to me to give a reasonable explanation. I just have to apologize to all the people I have worked with who put the trust in me recommending Elance.

Brian Verigin, YahSuccessBlog.com

PS. Elance please stop sending me offers to bid on jobs... I do not have an account with you.

Elance was great at first but I got notice that my account was closed due to "too much negative feedback." First off, I had a solid 5 stars on my reviews with clients saying that they would love to work with me again. Out of 10 projects that I worked on, I had two that I personally disputed.

Client number one and I MUTUALLY decided (based on her lack of direction and my inability to pull more information out of her) that her going with another designer would be beneficial. That was MY idea.

Client number two disappeared completely. We had our first meeting, discussed workflow and payment and then they stopped responding to me. I called, emailed through Elance... nothing. So I closed the project because I didn't want an open project that was going nowhere.

These two reasons are why Elance closed my account WITHOUT talking with me about it first. I received the email this morning and when I emailed them back asking for evidence, they responded saying "once it's closed it cannot be reopened." I replied with "I wasn't asking you to reopen my account, I was asking you for evidence."

Elance, I'm disappointed in you. I was a paid member and you didn't even have the decency to contact me to come to a resolution? Frankly, that's bad business and I for one do NOT appreciate the brush off when I inquired for more information. If I ran my business that way, I wouldn't HAVE a business.

Had 2 -3 yrs work through this site as a photographer, a few big jobs 2000$+ so was quite happy but then had one client who took forever to decide on images and suddenly my account was under review which i had no idea what this meant.
Contacted them and all they could say was the same reply over and over, complete the job and account will be reviewed. So job finished and nothing. So contacted them and within 48 hrs they decided that my account should be closed. No explanation as why they thought that just closed. I have been a pro photographer for over 20 yrs so run a professional business so for them to call my professionalism into doubt really annoys me.at least give the elancer some feedback as why they think this. Happy to take my money when i upgraded my account now complete bastards when i ask wtf they are doing this. Luckily they are less than 1% of my income but it really f**ks me off how they have treated me.

Hello,

Elance is the biggest scam I have come across, my account had loads of connects which came with my membership.
I was accumulating them for few months, they suddenly suspended my account. This came wthout any warning or notification to me. There is no appeal process as well. I have lost connects worth months of membership money which they charged to my
Card. Biggest scammers, shameful company, I would never register in their workplace again.

With Regards,
Kscoped

I have been paid as premium membership.
I invested there 199$USD today and I recived money with Premium Area.
Why You say that is scam?

My payout details: